Tracer's Time in Between
by tombouric
Summary: No one knows for certainty what happened to Tracer in between her first disappearance and when Winston saved her. When asked she has always stalled, obfuscated or outright ignored the question. Do you have time to see what she has? She certainly did.
1. Chapter 1

_She could feel it again, hurtling across the aeons…_

Septimus Quintus looked on as the barbarian hordes were caught in the trap. The Celts lead by Boudicca were caught between the advancing roman Legion and their own families. What had started as a battle was quickly turning into a slaughter.

He spurred his horse forward, trying to follow his fellow soldiers as much as tact could allow. He knew that protecting the general was a great honour, but it chafed him to watch the Legionaries fight without him. He had hoped to find an enemy worth fighting on this sodden field but the gods had seen fit to punish him this day.

Suddenly, almost as if appearing from thin air, a Briton stumbled on his path. She was wearing strange clothes and bore no weapons, but her hair was spiked in the Celtic fashion. At this point he didn't care. All he wanted was to feel like he made a difference this day. He drew his sword and charged after her.

When she spotted him she started running away, desperately trying to make it to the nearby wood line. Septimus followed at a leisurely pace, confident that he would be able to run her down before she could find shelter. As he leaned forward to deliver the deathblow she screamed in a foreign language before disappearing again in a flash of cobalt light. Septimus almost fell out of his saddle from the momentum of the swing but was able to right himself in time. He had heard rumours that the Celts had powerful druids capable of terrible sorceries, but he had never expected to see one on the field of battle. Shaking from such a near encounter with death, he swore to make the proper sacrifices to Jupiter when he got home…

 _A tug, only a tug, but no resistance could be offered to it…_

Jean-Luc was dying and he knew it. His guts were spread over the ground where the cannonball had hit him and he could feel his lungs welling up with blood. Still he called out to any who would hear.

"S'il vous plait, aidez-moi !"

Nobody heard him. The air was filled to the brim with the sounds of battle and death. He could hear voices cry out for lovers, mothers and water, comrades, friends and death. He could hear British voices too, but he wished no ill will on them. They were all bound together in that they had all lost the battle.

In the gunpowder fog he could see a figure reeling towards him. He called out to it, hoping it would help him.

"Amis, s'il vous plait !"

As the figure left the fog, he could see that it was a woman, yet her hair was strangely cut, and her clothes were like nothing he had ever seen. Still, if she could help him, he couldn't care less if she had appeared in a leopard skin cloak.

"Madame, s'il vous plait ! De l'eau, de l'eau !"

She just looked at him in horror and vomited on the ground. As quickly as she had appeared she vanished amidst blue flashes, leaving only a pool of vomit on Jean-Luc's boots as proof that she was ever there. He started crying in earnest now, his last hope snatched from him by cruel fate.

"S'il vous plait, une balle ! Une balle !"

He died in agony the following night.

 _It couldn't be resisted, it made her follow it towards entropy…_

As Ahmed watched his house burn before him, he cursed whoever piloted the bombers that were pounding his village into the dust. He was powerless to stop them as they dropped bomb after bomb, but he would be damned if he would give them the satisfaction of rolling over like a good dog without a fight. Then the screams diverted his attention.

His wife and children were stuck inside the house, and there was nothing that could be done to save them. He knew they would die. He turned his head towards the heavens and shouted at the top of his lungs.

"Kill me! You've taken everything from me, finish me!"

Still the bombs maliciously refused to destroy him. He was forced to listen to his loved ones burn to death while he could no nothing to stop it.

"Do it! What are you waiting for? DO IT!"

Then from his windows emitted a blue light, such as he had never seen before. An instant later someone crashed through them, holding his two children in their grasp. As he stared dumbly at them, the mysterious person put down her burden and climbed up the building back into the window she had previously exited, heedless of the fire that lapped her body. This time when she jumped out she was holding his wife. As she landed she dropped Kainat and rolled on the ground, trying to putting out the flames that devoured her. Ahmed ran up to her and tried batting of the flames as best he could, and together they managed to save her.

As she stood up he realised that she was a European. Her face hadn't been sunburned recently and her clothes were like the fighter pilot harnesses he had seen in pictures.

"Who are you? Where do you come from?"

She didn't answer, fixated by the planes that buzzed over her head. One in particular was of interest to her, and slowly a look of horror eased itself onto her face. Desperately she turned around to Ahmed and grabbed him by the front of his shirt.

"I'm so sorry."

She disappeared, leaving behind the village that she had helped destroy.

 _So many if onlys. So many whys. Except here. Here, there was only the pull..._

Samuel was rushing to the office laden with papers. He had woken up late that morning. If he hadn't woken up when he did he might have been late to work. Being a clerk was a thankless job, but pen pushing was one of his hew skills, and he certainly didn't relish trying to find a new profession. Because of that he ran to work with his suitcase hastily packed and an empty stomach, all of which only served to stretch his already thinly strung temper. So when a woman bumped into him (he swore he hadn't seen her) and his suitcase fell to the floor and exploded he couldn't help but snap at her.

"You idiot! Look where you're going!"

He scrabbled on the floor, desperately trying to recover his papers. The strange woman got down too, seemingly trying to help him, when she suddenly grabbed one of his pens and started madly scribbling on them.

"What are you doing?! Stop that!"

He grabbed the papers from her hands and roughly pushed her away from him. Too late he realised that he had pushed her towards the train track, and though he leaped forward to try and grab her she disappeared onto the tracks just as a Northern Line train screamed in. In that brief interval of time he saw her eyes.

They frantic, almost crazed, as if she had endured hardship that ordinary people could only dream of. She looked scared too, and babbled incoherently. When she saw the train approach he could have sworn that she looked relieved.

When the train arrived it smashed his outstretched head like an egg.

In the news it was reported that Samuel Ernest had died in King's Cross St Pancras as his head had been hit by a speeding train. So far he has been the only casualty, but CCTV footage did capture a mysterious woman in a pilot's uniform appear out of thin air before she fell onto the tracks, but her body hadn't been recovered. Samuel's death was officially put down as suicide from overworking. His colleagues were interviewed and they all gave the same story; he had been a decent person, kept himself to himself, but always seemed to be too focused on his work. To their knowledge he didn't take any sick days, nor spent time with them after work.

Samuel had no existing family members at the time, so his possessions were claimed by Her Majesty's government, although no reason was given. Already the Internet was saturated by conspiracy theories.

Anthony Heather, an agent for MI5, looked at the papers that were strewn around Samuel's body, mercifully untouched by the blood. Most of them were boring figures and statistics, paperwork in it's purest from. These he would pass on to Samuel's coworkers who were better qualified to deal with them. Anthony put them back in the suitcase, but kept one on his desk. It was no different than any of the others, save for the scribbled message written on it.

 _HELP ME_

 _TRACER_

Anthony picked up his phone.

"Get me General Sanders. Tell him I have a possible lead on his missing plane."

 _So many stops, only one destination. Pulled towards the end. Again and again and again and AGAIN_

Tracer opened her eyes. She had lost track of the number of times she had been thrown into history, and frankly she didn't care. She just wanted to go back home again.

 _Not bloody likely_ , she thought to herself.

Again she felt the same sensation of speed that heralded every re-entry back into history. She squinted towards her destination. If she concentrated, she might be able to get glimmers of whatever fresh hell she would end up in this time. Most of the time she was there only for a few seconds, but sometimes she could spend hours there too, and on one occasion days. It was best to be prepared. To her horror she saw only black studded with light. She had guessed this would happen eventually.

She was being sent towards empty space.

She began waving her arms, as if trying to fight a current of water. She knew that it wouldn't affect anything; no matter what she did, she always travelled at exactly at the same speed. As the blue walls that defined her new existence sped away from her, her destination grew and grew.

As she fell into the welcoming void, she wondered why she never got to visit her past self. The tales that she could tell…

Too late. With a cry, she appeared in the emptiness and began freezing to death.

 _Backwards was never allowed. Forwards, never back. Forwards, Never back. Never back, forwards. Forwards, back never. Back never, forwards._

 _Never forwards, back. Backwards was allowed._

As Winston looked down on the prone form in the confines of his latest invention, he realized that he might have been too late. Tracer's body was sheeted in ice, and underneath her new skin she looked haggard and malnourished. The doctors who were on standby rushed into the chamber, desperately trying to stabilise her condition. Winston paced outside impatiently wishing that he too were in there, but he knew better than to interrupt experts when they were at work.

Finally, the chief doctor left the room and approached Winston.

"Well?"

"She's in bad shape. Even without the ice she doesn't seem to have eaten since she disappeared, and she also is displaying some symptoms of sleep deficit. She's also in the early stages of hypothermia, and if she had stayed a second longer wherever she was I doubt we could have save her."

Hope flared in Winston's heart.

"You mean you can save her?"

The doctor allowed the smallest of smiles to spread across his lips.

"I can't guarantee that she'll be as she was before, and I can't attest to her mental health, but I am confident we can salvage something."

Winston grinned broadly. In contrast the general next to him frowned heavily.

"What about the plane, God damn it. I'm happy we saved an ace pilot like Tracer, but unlike her we sank millions of pounds into that fighter. Are you telling me that money went to waste?"

Winston slowly turned towards him and grinned even more. A big, _toothy_ , grin.

"I have good news for you then. It seems that whatever time travelling capabilities your aircraft had have moved onto Tracer. That's why we were able to retrieve her, and why she is in her present condition."

The general furrowed his brows at Winston's smile. A man who had stared into the maw of a tank cannon wasn't about to be frightened by some monkey's smile.

"So you're telling me she can travel through time?"

He nodded.

"To a limited degree, yes. I'll have to build her a harness that will anchor her to this time period if she is to have any control of her powers, thus limiting her powers to small dashes forwards and backwards through time barely perceptible on a grand scale. It might take me months to invent such a harness, and much longer to build it, but I am confident she'll still be useful to you."

He leaned closer to the general.

"IF she lives."

The general met his stare and did not blink. Finally, the stocky man ceded first.

"We'll grant you full funding to use at your discretion, including for her wellbeing. Thank you for your cooperation. And don't make me regret it."

And with that he stomped off back to his room where he would undoubtedly tell his superiors what had happened. Winston didn't like him, but he knew that the general was honest and wouldn't try to sabotage his efforts. The big gorilla turned back towards the chamber where the doctors had setup a makeshift operating table, his head spinning with ideas and calculations.

The next months would be very interesting indeed…


	2. Chapter 2

_Blue walls, full horizons, nothing but brief moments of existence to tide her over…_

Tracer opened her eyes. For the first time in what felt like months she felt relief. She wasn't in the _other_ place. She wasn't something else too. What was it?

She tried to lift her head, but her neck couldn't support the weight. She let it sink back onto the pillow and examined her new room as best she could. It looked like it was honeycombed, and it also looked spherical.

 _It's made of metal._

This made her feel uneasy. Metal meant secure. Secure meant that whoever was in it wasn't meant to get out.

She tried lifting her arm. Despite her best efforts she could barely raise it from its position before she let it fall to the ground again. As she let it drop it fell out of the bed and into plain sight. It was thin, thinner than she remembered.

 _What had happened to me?_

A door opened. She tried craning her head in the direction of the noise but couldn't see it. Whoever opened the door was approaching. She couldn't repress a small shiver of apprehension. Who would put her in this level of security? Could it be aliens?

Thankfully her visitor turned out to be a human, and a nurse at that.

"Hello Miss Oxton, how are you feeling today?" she said with a smile.

Tracer couldn't help but cry a bit. Those were the most beautiful words she had ever heard. And the nurse, bless her heart, didn't seem embarrassed in the slightest. Instead she got some tissues out of her apron and mopped Tracer up around the eyes.

"It's ok. You can cry as much as you want. Nobody should have to go through what you went through."

"Home?"

"Yes, you're home now, and you're safe."

It seemed too good to be true. As the nurse left the room with the promise of food to fulfil Tracer felt herself fall into unconsciousness again. Now she remembered what else she wasn't.

"I'm not dead." She whispered, then she slept like a log.

Winston looked down at the sleeping Lena Oxton. It had been several weeks since she had first woken up, and so far, she had made considerable progress. When it was established she was still sane all that was left was making her physically fit again. At first it was all she could do to lift a pen and write her name, but she seemed to be recovering quicker than anticipated. It wasn't long before she could walk a few paces with the help of the nurse, and now he was receiving reports that she could even walk unaided. She was far from her old athletic self, but at the very least she could lead a normal life.

General Sanders entered the room. True to his word he had secured all the necessary funds for this project of theirs, but he still hadn't lost his brutal professionality.

"How long?"

"The doctors can give you a better answer than I can. As far as I can tell she still has some time before she can function normally."

Sanders let out an irritated grunt.

"Not her. The harness."

So typical of him. Winston fully turned towards him.

"Thanks to the blueprints of the plane you gave me I was able to shorten my initial estimate of seven months to three. Give me another month and it'll be ready for testing."

The general grimaced. Even now Winston couldn't tell if he was smiling or showing his displeasure that Winston couldn't have finished earlier.

"Testing?"

He looked down at the sleeping Tracer.

"What the hell are you doing here, anyway? Shouldn't you be at the lab working on it?"

The armoured gorilla followed his gaze.

"I like to know what I'm working for. I feel it keeps me motivated."

Sanders looked at Winston directly in the eyes, and without a single word turned on his heel and marched out.

At that time Tracer woke up. He panicked. Tracer had never seen him in the flesh, he wondered how his appearance would affect her. Before he could leave she opened up her eyes.

Instead of the fear he thought she'd have she just looked puzzled, curious almost.

"You're Winston?"

He grew calmer again. Of course the nurses would have warned her. He nodded.

"Wow." She said, before falling silent again.

"So you saved me, right?"

"Not just me. I had a fine team of physicists helping me."

She nodded.

"Cheers anyway, love."

She grinned broadly. Winston couldn't help himself; her grin was so infectious that he found himself smiling too.

"So doc, when do I get to leave?"

His smile grew a little.

"It won't be long. A month, minimum."

Suddenly her smile disappeared. Very quickly she looked terrified.

And just like that she was gone.

Winston stared at her empty bed. It couldn't be. What had gone wrong?

"NO!"

 _Again and again, it never matters. Transit is wasteful. A and B are important._

Tracer was flying again. She hadn't seen this place again for the last two months, yet it was as familiar too her as was her own hand. She felt scared again. Why as she here again? Why after so long?

Once again she felt herself speeding up. That could only mean one thing.

The destination will arrive.

Once again she saw only darkness. Once again she cried out.

The void was trying to reclaim her. She belonged to it and she knew it.

She made one last effort, one last push fuelled by fear to go anywhere, anywhere but the cold.

And, by a fraction of a fraction, she managed.

She didn't have the time to by surprised as a different kind of darkness enveloped her.

 _Rushing down and down and up and left. Same as up and up and down and right, if you have the time._

Amélie Lacroix lost all track of time. She had forgotten what sunlight was. Bees and trees and flowers were foreign concepts to her. She didn't even know what other people looked like.

They were stealing everything from her and she knew it.

Even her husband's name was only a suggestion of sounds.

Suddenly a blue light opened up like a petal (what was a petal anyway?) and deposited a person in front of her. _A woman_. She could remember that at least.

She looked… Scared? Amélie wasn't sure that was the right word.

The woman picked herself off the ground, and when she saw Amelie she ran towards her. As soon as she arrived she started fiddling with the chair that held her to the knot. Or did she knot with the chair that held her to the fiddle?

Voices started piercing the door. She knew what that meant. _They_ were coming back.

The woman returned back into her line of sight.

"Look, I don't have much time, but if you can tell me what this place is I'll try to get you out as soon as possible."

She looked dumbly up at her.

"Aidez-moi."

This took Tracer by surprise. She remembered that French soldier dying on some battlefield centuries ago like it was yesterday.

Help me.

She'll do better than that.

"I'll get you out of here." She knew she couldn't keep that promise. Even if she could rouse the general to action she didn't even know where to start looking for her. When, even.

"Remember my name. My name is Tracer."

She looked blankly at her. At first Tracer feared that the woman had gone insane, but then she nodded.

Already she could feel the tug of the timeline, clawing at her, forcing her back to the cobalt walls.

"I'll be back!" she called out.

"Wait for me! I'll be back!"

And she disappeared.

Amelie watched the empty space, hoping that Tracer would come back. When she didn't return she let her head sink a few centimetres lower. Without meaning to her lips uttered a phrase she had once forgotten.

"Adieu chérie."

As the door opened, she swore to herself that she won't forget this Tracer. Talon can take everything else away from her, but they won't take this.

 _Falling up, flying down, turning forward, everything that it takes to get home._

"NO!"

And just like that she reappeared. She looked different, still scared but steadier too.

"What happened? Where did you go?"

Piece by piece he managed to coax the story out of her. What he heard he didn't like.

"Who was that woman? Can you give me a description, defining characteristics?"

Well built. Dark hair. French?

" _Blue skin_!?"

Tracer shrugged, unable to say anything else.

"That's what I saw. I don't know if it helps."

He looked at her in disbelief. _How could she not know?_

 _Because we never told her._

"Lena, you were gone for three years. A lot has changed since then."

Her eyes widened in surprise. _How could we not have told her?_

So he told her about everything. About the Omnics and their attempt to fight back against the perceived threat of humanity, starting in Russia. He told her about Overwatch, the engine with which the last two years has stalled and pushed back the Omnics before a joint peace was secured between the two. As his voice filled with pride he told her about the transformation of Overwatch from army to global police force, and in a much more disgusted tone of the rise of Talon, a terrorist organization bent on causing as much damage as possible to the relations between Omnic and human. Then his voice turned to sadness as he told her of Gérard Lacroix and the fate of his wife, who would later go on to kill him.

"That woman you saw was Amélie, now called Widowmaker. I'm sorry, but there's nothing you can do for her now. She's too far gone to be saved."

Lena didn't say anything. She just stared down at the floor. He put his huge hand on her shoulder as comfortingly as his body would allow it.

"She said she would remember my name."

"Lena, what are you talking abo-?"

She silenced him with a look. It was filed with iron, and underneath it he could sense anger, sadness and determination all mixing together in one pot. A recipe for obsession as far as he could tell, and it scared him slightly. A woman he could crush with his bare hands was scaring _him_! Or was it her enemies that he was scared for? Maybe her?

"Call me Tracer."

The next day she got out of bed without any help and began doing push ups.


End file.
